


Kiss Me Now or Catch Your Death

by EllieMurasaki



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Community: spn_fs_exchange, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-05
Updated: 2010-12-05
Packaged: 2017-10-13 12:54:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/137586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMurasaki/pseuds/EllieMurasaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"I won't say I've been looking for you." They both know it's not true. "But I'm glad I found you."</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Kiss Me Now or Catch Your Death

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smokeandsong](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=smokeandsong).



> Title from "My Skin" by Natalie Merchant (they say that promises sweeten the blow).

She's dark and she's fear and she's pain.

She's nothing.

She hasn't always been nothing. There's a voice, intermittent, saying she can become dark and fear and pain in a different way, but she's long since forgotten why she might care.

"Jo!"

It's a different voice.

"Joanna Beth!"

Different face, too, not that that means anything here where faces and voices are conjured by the self-concept of their owners, and that is a more coherent thought than she has had in... a long time.

"You're not Jo."

I'm not Jo, she thinks; whoever Jo is, it's not her. Logical followup questions: who is she, and—

"Who is Jo?" she asks, that being the question this person is more likely to know the answer to.

"My daughter."

That word 'daughter' sets off a string of memories, mother father cousins husband sons self, which answers her other question. "I'm Mary."

"Ellen." The other woman examines her face. "Mary Winchester?"

"Mary Campbell," she corrects. Mary Winchester is a meek little house mouse next to Mary Campbell. "But yes."

Ellen nods. "I won't say I've been looking for you." They both know it's not true. "But I'm glad I found you."

 

"Mary Judith Campbell, you pick up that knife _right now_ , young lady."

Later, Mary will wonder why Ellen's imitation of Mary's mother worked when nothing else, not even Ellen's patient explanation of the rules about and the benefits of getting off the rack (Mary's always prided herself on being a reasonable person), had.

 

Ellen tells Mary everything she knows about John and Dean and Sam. Her boys, her brave, strong boys—oh, how she wishes she'd remembered the date that last night. Sammy wouldn't have come to harm by crying a little longer. But John watched out for him, like she told him to. That's good. That much is good.

 

Dean told Ellen that his four months in hell were like forty years. Mary lost count long ago, but she starts counting from when she meets Ellen. Every so often another demon passes them on their diritta via (lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate), and Ellen twists bits of hellfire into a St. Andrew's Cross or the like and binds Mary to it and takes up a whip or a blade. Ellen always promises she'll be careful—Ellen made sure to spend long enough learning how to cause so much pain and only so much pain, after Ellen spent just long enough screaming.

It's so much easier to escape notice when everyone who sees you sees you doing exactly what everyone expects to see.

To be honest, Mary looks forward to these moments. They remind her she's not untouchable.

 

From their nightly conversations, Ellen still misses Bill. Mary, her love for John would be strangling if—well, it's a good thing Mary's heart has long since been carved out of her.

 

Dean and Sam are strangers to Mary. Ellen has been more of a mother to them than Mary ever was.

 

It's sweet, the way Ellen tells Mary all about Mary's sons and Ellen's daughter. Sweet and dark and sad.

Weak, whispers part of Mary.

Love is the strongest word there is.

 

Some days it's as though Mary's all alone.

 

The intense heat licks Mary's skin, Ellen's hand keeping the far enough away that it's like the heat of a candle, not a brand.

 

"There some reason you never go for the body cavities?" Mary asks one night.

"I _wouldn't_!" Ellen exclaims.

"Others have," Mary says, shrugging. It was a long time ago. She's been with Ellen... a long time. "I don't mind."

"I need a bit more than 'I don't mind'."

 

Rough sex has always been Mary's favorite kind.

 

Ellen gets worried, later, that they missed Jo while they were screwing around. Mary tells her to relax and get back to the knives. If Jo's in the area, she'd hear Mary shouting Ellen's name.

 

"Maybe Jo already got out?" Mary suggests when she's fairly certain she and Ellen have traversed all of hell there is to see.

"Let's find out," Ellen says, staring at the blankness that everyone agrees leads to nonexistence.

"Let's," Mary agrees. She takes Ellen's hand and jumps.

 

On the far side of oblivion is a cage, with two lights too bright for Ellen to look at. Mary sees past them to the boy, maybe eight, with tousled brown hair, and the little boy, just old enough to toddle, whom the other boy guards from the battling firestorms like the little one's a precious treasure. Siblings, Mary guesses.

"We can't leave them here," Ellen says.

"He looks like Dean did," Mary says, looking at the little one and barely hearing Ellen.

"We can't leave them," Ellen repeats.

 

On the near side of oblivion, motherhood puts a damper on things just like it always has. The little boy babbles happily, which draws attention. The older boy doesn't say a word.

 

The boys don't grow. They do learn how to disappear quietly when someone's near and how to ignore Mom's cries when Mama's the one causing them. It's the only way to keep their little family safe.

 

Jo's a grown woman, no older than Mary and Ellen look. Mary shouldn't be surprised; she knows from what Ellen's told her that Jo's younger than Sam but not by much, and she knows her boys are grown men. Jo's a full-fledged demon, which is why it took so long to find her; Ellen hasn't tapped hell's power often enough to create a permanent connection between it and her, and Mary has hardly ever used hellfire, and Ellen was expecting Jo to be like one of them.

Jo's been exorcised by hunters twice now.

Jo knows the way out.

 

A demon, a ghost, and a hybrid walk into a bar....

It's a hospital in a big city. Hanging around for a few weeks comes up with three dying women from early twenties to mid-thirties who are willing to time-share in exchange for not dying. What to do about the boys, neither Mary nor Ellen knows, since they _will not_ subject children to possession.

 

They're in Indiana when the little one flits off, comes back hurriedly to check on the baby, then goes off again. Mary follows with Jo. The house the little one leads them to is empty, but there are photos that the little one seems fascinated by: Dean Van Halen—Dean Winchester, Jo says, and isn't _that_ fascinating—with a dark-haired woman and child. Jo persuades the house phone to tell her Dean's number and leaves a message suggesting Mrs. Van Halen's in danger. Two hours later Dean and an exceedingly tall man rush in, guns drawn. The little one leaps at the tall man and vanishes, and a seizure later he tells Dean to stand down, that's Jo. That's Jo and Mom.

So her little one has been Sam all along.

Dean calls out for Castiel, to Jo's confusion until Dean explains that Castiel's a full angel again, and Sam says something about recreating _ha'adam_ from _ha'adamah_ that no one understands. Whatever it is, an hour later Mary's baby is a young man only a little shorter than Dean, Roslyn and Eve and Althea are healthy and uninjured as per the deal, Jo is a pale-skinned blonde instead of a dark-skinned brunette, Mary's skin fits like jeans she weighs too much to wear, and Ellen has auburn hair instead of black.

Mary's okay with that.


End file.
